Ice Skating is a Force

On December 29th, 2017, some of my friends and I went ice skating at Cranston Veteran's Memorial Ice Rink to do Physics and have fun. Most of us are in Physics and decided to take on a different aspect of ice skating that relates to forces; I decided to find the force needed to push an object on the ice. Due to the fact that this is ice, for the purpose of this blog I removed friction.

In this first video, Mansi is pushing a crate along the ice at an accelerated rate and only exerted a force in the x direction. The Free Body Diagram should look like:

The Net Force equations are:

            

             ΣFx = Fmansi = ma

             ΣFy = N - mg = 0

Crate mass: 0.5Kg

dx: 15m

Vi: 0 

Vf: (?)

t: 5 s

a: (?)

15 = 0.5(0 + Vf)5

Vf = 6 m/s

6^2 = 0^2 = 2a(15)

a = 1.2 m/s^2

Fmansi = (0.5)(1.2) = 0.6 N

Mansi pushed the crate with 6 N of force.

I lost the video that had similar conditions to the previous example. The idea is still the same; Eve was pushing the crate while Courtney sat on it. So, for this example lets say that the crate was accelerating at a rate of 1.7 m/s^2.

Free Body Diagram:

                                                       

Net Force Equations:

             ΣFx = Feve = ma

             ΣFy = N - mg = 0

Crate mass(Including Courtney): 55Kg

Feve = (50.5)(1.7) = 85.85 N

Eve pushed Courtney with 85.85 N of force across the ice.

Although this is Physics, I actually had a lot of fun working on this stuff with my friends.  So please enjoy this video of Ryan Clary almost falling on the ice.